Ship Chaplain Robert Spencer sailed into Pearl Harbor on the bow of the USS Belleau Wood yesterday. Marines from the California-based Expeditionary Strike Group 3 will be practicing assault techniques at Schofield Barracks Area X.
Troops arrive in isles
to train for Iraq return2,200 Marines are being sent back
for an indefinite deployment
After being home for less than a year, Cpl. Micah Machida is going back to the Middle East as part of a 2,200-member Marine force that is being sent back into the action because of increased insurgency in Iraq in April.
"It's definitely a shake to be returning so soon," said Machida, whose family still lives in Kaimuki. "My wife is six months pregnant, and I won't be there when she gives birth on Sept. 20. When I left, I didn't know my baby's sex.
"I just found out yesterday we're going to have a boy."
Machida, 22, left Kuwait in June 2003 after spending seven months there as a member of special reactionary force. Medina and more than 4,000 other California-based Marines and Navy sailors are on Oahu this week for training before leaving for Iraq on Monday.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Medina, commanding general of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, estimates that at least half of the 2,200 Marines who left Camp Pendleton and Miramar and Yuma Marine Corps air stations in Southern California on May 27 have already served in Iraq.
Medina, who commanded the 3rd Marine Regiment at Kaneohe Bay in 2001, said the 2,200 Marines, all members of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the 2,100 sailors on the seven ships he commands don't know how long they will be away. They hope it will not be much longer than a routine six-month deployment, but many believe their time at sea may be determined by the June 30 turnover of power in Iraq.
Three of Medina's ESG 3 ships arrived at Pearl Harbor yesterday and will spend the next two days training at Schofield Barracks, Kaneohe and Hickam Air Force Base before heading to Iraq.
More than 150 Marines were airlifted into Schofield Barracks Area X early yesterday morning in three separate waves of CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters as the USS Belleau Wood steamed 25 miles off the coast of Oahu. The rest of the Marine force was trucked to Schofield shortly after the ship docked at noon.
The 40,000-ton amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood is Medina's command vessel. It can carry a battalion of 850 Marines, along with the supplies and equipment needed in an assault and land them ashore by either helicopter or amphibious craft. It has been dubbed America's "911" force and launched strike teams into Afghanistan as well as conducting humanitarian assistance projects in Djibouti and East Timor.
The Belleau Wood is accompanied by two other amphibious ships, USS Denver and USS Comstock. Later the San Diego-based cruiser USS Mobile Bay will join the strike group along with the Pearl Harbor-based destroyer USS Preble and the nuclear attack submarine USS Charlotte.
Medina said his strike group prepared for its latest deployment under the Navy's new Fleet Response Plan, which is designed to give the president more weapons to respond to a national emergency or crisis. This means that the Navy will deploy its warships "when there is a purpose to deploy," Medina added, "not just because it's on the schedule."
Although under the Fleet Response Plan the Navy expects its ships to spend less time at sea, Medina acknowledged that "the key is trying to put predictability into that for some of the families."
Lance Cpl. Adam Simpson, a scout sniper team member, also was concerned about family. Simpson, 20, was in Iraq for seven months, returning to San Diego in September 2003.
"It's not a big deal for me to go back," said Simpson, who is from Chicago. "It's my job. It's what I do. The only drawback is being away from my family. It's harder on them than on me."
